Newly appointed 2026 JD Stout Fellow Dr Frances Hancock will use her fellowship to complete a co-authored book highlighting the campaign against a housing development on confiscated Māori land at Ihumātao, South Auckland, which gained national attention in 2019.

Weaving archival, documentary and interview material, the book examines the collaboration forged in the Indigenous-led and community supported campaign Save Our Unique Landscape (SOUL), now known as #ProtectIhumātao.

Provisionally titled Becoming SOUL whānau: Joining for justice at Ihumātao, the book project builds on the Marsden-funded, hapū-led study, Matike Mai Te Hiaroa: #ProtectIhumātao, co-led by Drs Hancock, Jenny Lee-Morgan and Carwyn Jones. Other contributors to the Marsden were campaign co-founders Pania Newton, Qiane Matata-Sipu and Moana Waa, Pākehā activist-scholars Tim McCreanor and Nicola Short, and advisors Stephanie Tawha and Dave Veart.

Dr Hancock’s research interests include Te Tiriti o Waitangi scholarship, Indigenous-settler relations, Irish-Pākehā identity, and story work. Dr Hancock, who is an honorary academic at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland, was previously awarded a Fulbright, a Harvard Fellowship, and a University of Auckland Doctoral Scholarship.

“My life/work has been deeply influenced by the Indigenous peoples and underserved communities with whom I have worked over many years—both in Aotearoa and North America,” she says. “Those relationships nourish my work for justice and led me to Ihumātao.”

Alongside research and writing, Dr Hancock will advance the nationally significant #ProtectIhumātao campaign archive. Belonging to Te Ahiwaru, this hapū archive contains a substantial collection of campaign documents, videos and images.

Dr Hancock will take up the fellowship in March 2026.